


Shiro and Zarkon Fistfight in the Astral Plane

by alpha_hydra



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, OCs as a plot device, Pre-Shiro/Allura, hoping to finish this before S3 renders it entirely wrong, just let Space Dad be happy, some S2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_hydra/pseuds/alpha_hydra
Summary: Lance becomes Keith's go-to conspiracy theory planner, despite everything Lance can do to get out of it. Together, they're sure to figure out just what exactly happened to their Space Dad! Otherwise, well, it might be a little dramatic to say that the fate of the universe depends on it, but then again, they are literally running around without the Head of Voltron.(AKA that time Lance's prank got a little out of control)





	Shiro and Zarkon Fistfight in the Astral Plane

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried very hard not to write this story, because knowing me the seemingly basic premise will become a convoluted hot mess, and yet here I am. Featuring Team Voltron having problems, Shiro needing rest and a hug, and so many conspiracies. Eventually the rating will go up. Probably.

Shiro is declared officially Missing in Action after three full day/night cycles aboard the castle. In the immediate aftermath of Zarkon’s death, there’s little anyone can do except pack up everything and run to safer ground. This is because, despite their all-powerful leader’s pretty obvious death, no Galra retinue will ever admit defeat or do anything as sensible as negotiate a cease-fire. At the Garrisson, Lance had to retake his “Warfare and Tactics” class twice before he learned anything worth remembering, and even he can tell it’s not the best fighting strategy. The point is, you’d think after killing the _Emperor of the entire Evil Universe_ the bad guys would stop shooting, but oh no. They have only enough time to coax the black lion back into its hangar before they warp jump.

The brainstorming begins ten hours and five separate arguments later, then ends abruptly one hour after that when both Keith and Allura storm out of the control deck in two separate directions. Lance watches Keith’s retreating back and wonders when exactly he became more worried about his wellbeing than Princess Allura’s.

A very awkward silence rings around the room after they leave. Coran clears his throat and frowns in the direction Allura ran off into. Lance avoids everyone’s gazes, and suspects that—based on the amount of foot shuffling he can see from the corners of his eyes—everyone else is doing the same.

“I should really check on the engine,” Coran eventually says. “It took quite a beating.”

But even Lance can tell how worried he is. Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder and musters up a smile.

“I’ll come with.” Lance thinks that Team Voltron doesn’t deserve a guy as good as Hunk, especially when he gives Coran a hearty shake and the tension in the guy’s shoulders’ just melts away. “I’ve been sneaking a peak at Pidge’s notes, and I think I’ve got some of this Altean alphabet stuff down.”

“Hey!” Pidge exclaims. She smiles ruefully at their retreating forms, then sends a piercing look at Lance. “Do you want to take the Princess or Keith?”

“I’d rather not get my head bitten off, thanks,” Lance says.

“Fair enough,” is Pidge’s response. They look at each other again for a second; Pidge has on her skeptical eyebrows, which has Lance worried for a second. “Uh. Just so we’re clear. All that stuff Allura said about the Galra. You don’t like, believe it, do you?”

“In the sense that the Galra Empire indoctrinates its people into universal domination, which breeds a disdain for all other life, you know. Maybe.” Lance shrugs. He thinks about the curve of Keith’s spine, the angry jut of his chin. “But you know. An entire species can’t be all completely evil and irredeemable. They’re not born that way, no matter what Allura says. That’s pretty racist.”

“Speciecist, I’d guess,” Pidge says with a small smile on her face. “Okay. I’ll go find Keith. Try not to annoy the princess too much, ok?”

“I’ll have you know she finds me charming, just like everyone else in the universe!”

Lance says it mostly to hear Pidge scoff at him disdainfully, and she doesn’t disappoint. Smiling after her retreating form, Lance hangs out on the control deck for a while after Pidge leaves, letting his gaze fall along all the equipment that Lance himself only theoretically knows how to work. The big table at the center of the room still has open all the specs of their mission, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, he thinks about Shiro, crossing his arms as something like a smile tilts up the corner of his mouth.

“We can do this,” Shiro had said, and in that moment, there wasn’t a person who would have doubted him.

Man, the universe sure loves to deal that guy a shitty hand, he thinks ruefully to himself. But being a team means never leaving anyone behind, and it’s Lance’s steadfast belief that they’ll find him that lets him pat the table fondly before going to find Allura.

They’ll find Shiro. They have to. In Lance’s mind, there’s no other option.

Lance finds Allura sitting at the far end of the table in the dining room, her back turned towards the door. She looks like she could use a hug. Or at least a big fleece blanket to hide all of her worries under. Lance clears his throat and Allura jumps a couple inches straight off her seat. She spins around and just stares at Lance for a few seconds, as if she’s unsure who he is. Her eyes are turning a deep pink color, and Lance wonders if that’s what happens to Alteans when they cry.

“Oh, it’s you, Lance,” she says in a sad attempt at her usual perky demeanor. “I didn’t think anyone would come in here.”

For a second she frowns, the split-second kind of downturn of lips that is almost impossible to control. Allura is probably the most beautiful woman—alien—sentient being—that Lance has ever seen, but the original attraction he’d felt for her pales in comparison to the platonic ache he feels for her now. He wants to pull her into a hug and promise that everything will be okay, but he’s not entirely sure he wouldn’t be lying to her if he said it.

“Hunk bakes when he’s stressed,” he says lightly instead, unsure of what to put into the silence between them. “So, sooner or later he would have wandered in here. Not the best place to hide.”

“I suppose not,” Allura answers, her shoulders slumping.

Lance watches the princess for another long few seconds, but that seems to be all she’s willing to say at the moment. He sighs and carefully pulls out the chair to her right. Sits. She doesn’t seem to mind, or notice really; it seems she’s disappeared back into her head.

“I know you’re really worried about Shiro,” Lance finally begins with, because he feels like he might as well say his piece, “But I don’t think you should take it out on Keith. Of all of us, he’s probably the one who is the most upset about the whole thing.”

Allura looks up sharply and even opens her mouth as if she’s about to argue, before she frowns and looks away.

“I know,” she says. “And I am sorry. I was just. I talked to Coran, and I’ve been trying to get past the fact that he’s half-Galra. It is…hard.”

The only thing Lance can think of to say in the moment is, _well, try harder_ , but he doesn’t think that’s the best way to handle this conversation, so instead he just shrugs.

“You’ve trusted Keith before,” he says, and he never thought he’d see the day when he’s actually willingly defending mullet-head. Yet, here he is. Strange how life works. “He’s no different now than he was when you first met him.” He frowns, and after a moment adds, “well, he’s more willing now to listen to my great and fabulous ideas, so really he’s only just improved.”

That manages to get a small chuckle out of Allura. She looks up at him, and he gets stuck on the startling blue of her eyes, the delicate pink of the markings under them, just a shade more orange than normal. He thinks it could have been so easy for him to fall all the way in love with her.

“I’ll try harder,” she says. “And apologize. I know he’s worried about Shiro too.”

“We all are.”

“Yes,” Allura says, but something in her voice has him frowning. She’s looking away into the middle distance again, the corners of her mouth trembling into a miserable line. A single tear drops down her cheek; it hits the pink marks around her eyes, where they grow a shade darker. “I’m sorry,” she says, massaging the tops of her cheekbones. “I don’t want to make a spectacle. It’s just. I didn’t want—I just thought.” She clears her throat. “Everything I’ve ever cared about has been taken from me. I thought I could have just this one thing. And—”

She stops and takes several deep, shuddering breaths. It doesn’t seem to help. When she finally turns back to him, she is openly crying, big fat tears running down her cheeks, the markings around her eyes now a deep purple.

_Oh._

Lance pulls her forward gently and she all but collapses into his shoulder, trying to clutch onto his paladin armor but not finding purchase. Lance runs a hand over the top of her head, soothing.

“I didn’t know you two were like that,” he rumbles, and thinks that even a month ago, this revelation would have been devastating to his ego.

“We’re not,” she says between shaky breaths. “Not really. Not yet. I had thought—”

But that seems to be all she’s able to say for the moment. Lance holds her while she has the Altean (or possibly princess) equivalent of a breakdown: her shoulders shake quietly, and she grips the edge of his pauldron so tight that he can feel one of the edges bend inward slightly. Then, like a light has been turned on, she stops, and pulls away. Her eyes are still pink and the marks under her eyes are still a dark, sluggish color, but she manages to smile at him anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and wipes away the last of her tears with the back of her hand. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry you had to see that, Lance.”

“It’s what friends are for, Princess,” he says.

She smiles at him, a small, wavering thing, and stands.

“Thank you. I’ll talk to Keith tomorrow. We will figure this out, and then we will find Shiro. Together.”

“Damn straight,” Lance says, and Allura makes a strange noise in the back of her throat, like maybe she wanted to giggle but stopped herself at the last moment.

“Goodnight, Lance.”

Lance watches her walk away, just in case she didn’t fully cry herself out and needs another hug, but then she disappears down a hallway, and is gone. Lance stays in the kitchen for a long time after that, thinking back to every interaction he’s seen between Allura and Shiro, looking for something that he must have missed.  
_  
(Shiro and Allura alone on the bridge, standing in almost identical poses while staring off into space. Lance wanders in, halfheartedly looking for Pidge, but freezes before fully entering the room. The lilt of Allura’s voice is soft and hesitant; secretive. Lance doesn’t want to intrude._

_“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Shiro says._

_Lance has enough time to think it somewhat bizarre that neither of them are looking at each other while talking, but he turns around and decides to search the training deck instead.)_

_(Shiro’s hand on Allura’s shoulder, a grounding, steady weight. Something in Allura’s posture changes ever so slightly, enough for Lance to notice while she’s giving out assignments, but not quite enough to be noteworthy. Now, he thinks it might have been reassurance.)_

_(“I’ll come with you,” Shiro says after a long day of fighting Galra._

_“Oh,” Allura says, the edge of a smile creeping up her face. Lance remembers the small flare of jealousy that time, that Shiro can get Allura to smile when none of Lance’s pick-up lines work. “I would like that. Thank you, Shiro.”_

_And the faint trace of a blush spreading across Shiro’s face as he follows the princess out. It tips into a scowl when Pidge and Hunk start wolf whistling, and he quickly escapes.)_

Come to think of it, there is in fact a whole lot of stuff he’s missed while flirting with Allura. It makes him question his own perception skills enough that he decides it’s not worth thinking about now and heads to sleep.

He doesn’t sleep very well, but then again, he thinks there’s no one in this castle who gets a good night sleep. Not tonight. Not when they’re missing the cornerstone of Voltron.

*

Lance stumbles into the kitchen the next morning completely on autopilot. He’s up way earlier than normal and for once can’t stand the quiet humming of the ship gliding through space. He stops short in the doorway, swaying slightly on his feet and not quite managing to open his eyes all the way.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Hunk’s voice says, and Lance smiles and stumbles into a seat by feel alone.

“What are you doing awake?” Lance asks, and also, after sniffing the air suspiciously, “And why does it smell like pancakes?”

“Did you know Shiro used to wake up really early to milk Kaltenecker?” Hunk says, seemingly ignoring both of Lance’s questions. Lance finally opens his eyes and watches Hunk’s somewhat frantic pacing around the kitchen. “Shiro. Our space dad. He would milk Kaltenecker with his space arm.”

“Okay?”

“Because cows that have had calves need continuous milking, Lance,” Hunk says with an edge of hysteria to his voice. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Um?” Lance squeezes his eyes shut and then forces them open again in an attempt to ward away the last lingering dregs of sleep. “Shiro liked the cow?”

Now that Lance is really looking, he can see that Hunk looks kind of like he probably hadn’t slept through the night. It also smells like pancakes because there is a huge stack of suspiciously pancake-shaped objects piled high on the counter behind him. He wanders back over to Lance, which is when he notices that Hunk’s also holding a weird metal apparatus that he’s never seen before. Lance squints at it and turns his head to the side, trying to figure out what the weird metal thing is.

“Have you been churning butter?” he asks cautiously.

“Yes!” Hunk says. He leans in closer to Lance with a crazy look in his eyes. “We’ve had this cow for weeks and it didn’t even occur to me that we could have been using her milk all this time, Lance. Shiro was milking her so she could live a comfortable life. And I guess he had just been drinking all the milk himself for breakfast? Or something? Without telling us?? Without offering me, Hunk, the cooker of foods, a single glass?” Hunk pulls away to frown dramatically into the middle distance. “I feel so betrayed.”

“Who’s betraying whom?” Keith asks from the doorway. “And why does it smell like pancakes?”

“Hunk has gone crazy,” Lance answers. Keith plops down into the seat to Lance’s right and runs a hand through his hair. He too, looks like he could use a good night’s sleep. “Am I the only one who actually slept last night?”

“Probably,” Pidge says, having suddenly appeared behind Keith. She yawns widely and slumps into her own seat. “I was up all night compiling all that Galra data. I thought it might give us a clue about. Well, you know.”

“Shiro,” Keith supplies. He scowls heavily at the tabletop, as if it were somehow responsible. “I’ve been going over our voice recordings from the battle. There has to be something there.”

“Hunk has apparently been making butter?” Lance supplies when Keith turns to him expectantly.

“Not just butter, Lance!” Hunk says, and finally sets three stacks of the pancake-look-alikes in front of all of them. Lance isn’t sure how Hunk was holding four plates of precariously stacked pancakes in his arms, but it’s early in the morning and Lance doesn’t have the brainpower to deal with it. For the eight-millionth time, he wishes passionately for a cup of coffee. But either way, a pile of pancakes appears in front of Lance, all of them a faint green color, which he supposes means they have some goo in them. Goo-Pancakes. “Butter, buttermilk, oh and I found some cultures that when I asked Coran sounded like they could be used to make cheese! Actual cheese in space! Space cheese!”

“You found some cultures,” Keith says suspiciously, just when Pidge whispers: “Are these what I think they are,” in awe, neatly sidestepping most of Hunk’s monologue.

“Well, probably not,” Hunk hedges. “But they’re as close as we’re getting without any flour.”

Pidge attacks her stack like she’s not eaten in days, and when Lance takes his own tentative first bite, he’s got to admit that they’re pretty good. They’re denser than actual pancakes, a little green, and have a subtle goo aftertaste, but Lance can easily ignore that for the wonderful, fluffy way their breakfast feels on his tongue.

Back before his parents moved from Cuba to Florida, Lance’s Mom used to make tiny, palm-sized pancakes on rainy days. They were always a little too dense and Lance would always get the over-cooked ones because he’d never wake up early enough for the best ones. But they were warm, and made the house smell great and Lance could take a stack of 15 and eat them like cookies throughout the day.

His second bite makes him so homesick that for a second he can hardly breathe. He remembers so clearly Mamà standing in her ratty old pajama pants, her hair pulled out of her face in a messy ponytail, the thunder cracking in the distance. He thinks about the early morning sunshine spilling in through their window, normally bright but today weak and gray from the clouds.

“There’s a hurricane coming,” she could be saying, watching Lance stuff his pockets with slowly cooling pancakes. “Make sure everyone is inside before lunchtime.”

“Por supuesto,” Lance might have said around a mouthful, and been swatted out of the kitchen playfully for his trouble.

“Hey, Lance, are you okay?”

Lance shakes his head and snaps back into the present, where Keith, Hunk, and Pidge are all watching him with identical frowns on their faces. Lance breathes deeply and forces a smile onto his face.

“Yeah,” he says. “These are some great pancakes, Hunk.”

“Goo-cakes, I call them, but I guess the name can stay because they are cooked in a pan. But, you think so?” Hunk says all in one breath.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” he answers, and pushes down the homesickness until it’s hardly even a sting. “Seriously though, Hunk. Get some sleep. You sound like a crazy person.”

“Seconded,” Pidge manages around a mouthful.

Lance takes a goocake, folds it in half, and shoves it into his mouth before standing. “I’ll see you guys!”

It comes out sounding somewhat unintelligible, but he guesses they get his meaning. Pidge makes a horrified face before doing the exact same thing. Lance is just thinking about maybe visiting Blue for a bit when a voice stops him short.

“Lance, wait up!”

He doesn’t, in fact, wait up for Keith, but he maybe slows his pace until Keith catches up to him.

“What’s up, my main mullet man?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says awkwardly, which isn’t particularly new for Keith. The awkward part, that is; the talking part is still new enough that it makes something funny swoop in the pit of Lance’s stomach.

“What about?”

Keith stays silent for a while as they meander out of the dining area and down a long stretch of hallways. Lance watches the doors as they walk by; wonders who might have lived behind them, once, ten thousand years ago.

“Shiro wanted me to lead Voltron,” Keith says after they make it to the elevator and neither of them has pushed any of the buttons. Lance stares at the rows of buttons, listening to the heavy way Keith inhales. “If he ever—you know. Couldn’t. He thought I could do it.”

“Oh.”

Lance thinks up and discards almost five responses to that. Mostly variations on Why would he leave you in charge and not me? So instead, he stays quiet.

It’s a new thing he’s going for, here: thinking before speaking. After a while, Keith frowns at him.

“Why aren’t you saying that I’d make a terrible leader?” he asks suspiciously.

“Well, because it’s so obvious that even you think it, for one,” Lance can’t help but snap, “But mostly, well, someone has to lead, right?”

“Shiro piloted the black lion,” Keith bites back. “I can’t do that. I won’t.”

“Okay,” Lance says.

“I can’t fly the black lion,” Keith repeats, like maybe Lance hadn’t heard him. “I fly the red lion so that I can do whatever I want and attack whenever I can. How am I supposed to lead when I don’t even make a decision half the time?”

“So, don’t pilot the black lion,” Lance says in what he thinks is a very reasonable tone of voice. Lance is just about to add that he’d be happy to do it, by the way, when Keith interrupts him.

“But someone has to.” It’s clear he’s had this argument enough times with himself that he doesn’t really need Lance at this point. “He wanted me to and he’s not here but the universe needs Voltron, Lance! We can’t just pilot around in our lions and expect everyone to just wait until we figure this out! But no one else can fly the Black Lion. She’s Shiro’s. I wouldn’t—”

“Hey man, breathe,” Lance finally cuts in. Keith looks like he might punch something if he keeps spiraling. “We’ll figure it out.”

Keith stares at him like he’s grown a second head. It’s a very intense kind of stare-down, so Lance looks away and studies the buttons on the wall again; finally decides to push the one for the training deck.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, one, because we’re Voltron: Defenders of the Universe,” Lance says with the wide grin he knows annoys Keith quickest. “And second, because we’re going to find Shiro anyway, so at best we just have to come up with some stop-gap ideas until then. And third, no one else is really feeling so sure about anything right now, so I guess I have to do it myself.”

Lance watches the elevator doors as the silence stretches around them, until finally they stop and ding open.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Keith says.

“Sure, it does,” Lance says. “Come on, let’s go beat each other up on the training deck for a while. That might help.”

“Doubtful,” Keith answers, but he trails after Lance anyway, so really, it’s a win.

Well, except for the fact that Keith trounces Lance four times in a row in hand-to-hand combat. A little less than a win. But hey, he’s willing to suffer a little if it gets the tense, cagey look out of Keith for at least an afternoon.

*

They work out a system, eventually. It takes them a handful of days and a whole lot of arguments, but it’s eventually unanimously agreed that the universe still needs saving. Turns out, most calls for aid can be solved by three lions and a solid plan, especially considering that The Blade of Marmora eventually gives them a call and lets them know they’d be down for some universe-saving, team style. This means that lucky lion number 4 (usually Keith, truth be told) can be kept on stand-by. Keith generally spends this time painstakingly scanning the large stretches of space around them for any life-signs that might be Shiro.

It’s not perfect, but they can’t put aside helping people for the sake of finding Shiro. As a certain pointy-eared TV character would say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. They also find out that outside of a crisis, the whole team can figure out a plan that won’t get any of them killed (or in such deep shit that requires Voltron to save their butts). None of this would hold up to any of the Galra super-machines, but they haven’t seen one of those in eons.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, Hunk, stop worrying,” Lance says during one of the seeming endless meetings they have to hash out their plan of action.

“It’s a valid point,” Pidge says with her arms crossed. “If we come across another Myzax, we’d be virtually helpless.”

“At which point we’ll die or get captured,” Keith says. He stops pacing for long enough to glare at all of them, then turns and marches to the main viewing screen. He’s been doing a lot of angry pacing recently, Lance notices. “I’m with Lance. There’s no point in worrying if we already know the outcome.”

“Not exactly what I meant, but good input, Keith,” Lance says. “I especially like the part where you side with me.”

“The point is to prevent that outcome!” Pidge shoots back. Lance shrugs at her. Pidge looks between all of them and makes a frustrated noise in return. “I’ll brainstorm…something. I am not gonna face another of those monsters unprepared.”

“I’ll help,” Hunk says, and offers Pidge a high-five.

And that is then end of it, more or less.

And well, it’s worked for the last 12 times they’ve tried, so they’re sticking with it until they find Shiro.

Today, Lance is on Stand-by duty while Hunk, Pidge, and Keith do a quick search and rescue of an abandoned Galra cargo ship.

“How’s the mission going?” Lance can’t help but ask after only twenty minutes.

“Right on track,” Coran says from the navigation console. “They should reach the cargo ships in less than half a varga.”

“Great,” Lance says, even though he still doesn’t really know what that means.

“Quit worrying, Mom,” Hunk says and wow, he hadn’t realized before that Coran can put the Voltron channel on speaker. He hears Hunk plain as day, along with Pidge’s hastily stifled snigger. “We’ll be fine.”

“Just focus on looking for Shiro,” Keith snaps, and Lance rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, sure. Well, I’ll know if you guys screw anything up without me, okay? Coran will tell me.”

“And the ship wide alert should be helpful as well,” Coran adds helpfully.

Has he always been so intent on watching the team’s vitals? Lance has never even seen those particular screens pulled up before, but here he is. His eyes jump from the main viewing screen—which holds the view of their lions quickly approaching an idly floating vessel—to a long panel closer to the keyboard. This is color-coded and has a whole lot of bars and graphs, all of which seem slightly baffling from Lance’s perspective. Yet, towards the bottom of the screens, four lines, unmistakable for anything except heart rate monitors. Lance doesn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

Let Coran grieve the way he thinks is most efficient. Who is Lance to judge?

“Well, I guess I’ll go do…something. Just try not to get yourselves killed while I’m here, okay?”

Quiznack, he does sound like a mom. When had he become the mom friend? He wanders away from the main viewing screen, originally intending to hunker down at his own console when something on Keith’s computer catches his eye. Keith has left a weirdly organized, color-coded map just open on screen, waiting to be snooped through, so Lance decides to take a seat there and pick up whatever it was Keith had been up to.

This turns out to be a very bad idea. Lance should have remembered that Keith spent a whole lot of time alone in the desert looking for “Weird Energy Readings.” He should have remembered the corkboard full of newspaper clippings and UFO sightings. He should have remembered Keith is a conspiracy theorist. And yet, here he is, staring at a messy screen full of color coded notes. Here in three-dimensional glory, are thin digital threads connecting separate links to one another.

Keith’s conspiracy theory mood board.

Amazing, he thinks somewhat manically, and starts clicking on headings. Eventually, Lance follows a link labelled “Blade of Marmora” to a screen with several documents, including such gems as annotated biographies of several members, several links only labelled as probable theories for Shiro’s whereabouts, such as Amnesia?, black paladin power of teleportation?, and could have been picked up in space. There is a suspiciously gleeful feeling rising up in Lance. He is such a sucker for a good conspiracy theory, even if he doesn’t believe in any of them. Mostly, he loves to goad theorists into believing increasingly nonsensical conspiracies and watching level-headed people (like Pidge) slowly lose their minds.

Lance clicks around through the program until he lands on something that looks like a brainstorming list of potential Shiro-locations. Lance cracks his knuckles and gets to typing.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

 

*

When Shiro finally surfaces into awareness, he’s in the grey, in-between place of waking and sleeping. His head feels like it’s trying to come apart at the seams, and heavy tendrils of fog keep trying to curl around him and lull him back to sleep. The fog makes a convincing argument, truth be told. The more he inches into waking, the more his entire body starts to hurt; a deep, bone-weary ache that makes him feel like at any moment, all his bones might spontaneously split from his body. He shakes his head once, twice, and takes a moment to plead with anyone who might be hearing that for once, he’s had a little bit of luck.

But when he opens his eyes, all he sees is darkness.

“Wonderful,” Shiro says, if only because he’s alive and aware enough to say it.

He’s still wearing his helmet and space suit, which is at least somewhat lucky, because that’s when he notices that he isn’t lying down, or being supported by anything for that matter. Just—floating. After a few more seconds of breathing, a faint shimmer begins to appear, as if his eyes are finally adjusting to the lack of light. The shimmer of hundreds of millions of stars, light-years from him.

If anyone else were in this situation, Shiro thinks they might have screamed the moment they realized they were floating in the vast infiniteness of space, without a ship and no way of knowing if there was anyone to rescue him. But Shiro—he’s been kidnapped and tortured and forced to watch his best friends put themselves at risk. And anyway, long ago Shiro learned to ignore the crippling ache of loneliness.

“At least you’re alive, Shiro,” he says into the universe. “There’s one thing to be grateful for.”

And then, he closes his eyes, and for a few moments (Hours? Clicks?) he lets himself float aimlessly. Only for a moment, he thinks, even as the ominous coils of sleep wind around his thoughts. Just long enough to find the strength he’s so well known for.

But he is just.

So tired.

Shiro slips into sleep again, and in the vastness of space, there is nothing that might wake him.

*

Lance isn’t proud to admit it, but he gets a little carried away. And by a little, he means he spends the majority of the recovery mission so engrossed in his elaborate crackpot-conspiracies prank that he completely tunes out Team Voltron blaring over the speakers.

“Uh guys, I think I found the cargo,” Pidge mumbles into her comm, and it isn’t until the ominous silence follows that that Lance finally shakes his head and looks up at the screen.

Pidge has activated one of her body cams, and she’s standing at the mouth of a hole that must have been cut open with her bayard, by the ragged, still glowing edges. There’s a large, dimly lit room that at first glance looks like a huge storage room, with dozens of long shelving units filling it. Pidge creeps into the room between the stacks, rubs the dust off a long oval-shaped container.

“Oh quiznack,” she says.

When she lifts her hand away, revealing a sleeping alien face from behind thick, frosted glass.

“Prisoners?” Lance asks, abandoning his project and crossing over to where Coran is frantically typing by the main screen. “Or soldiers?”

“They don’t look particularly Galra,” Pidge whispers, “But it looks like they’ve been here a while.”

“How many of them are there?” Hunk’s voice asks. With a flick of his wrist, Coran pulls up Hunk’s camera, where he’s circling the cargo ship in the Yellow Lion and running sensor scans. “Could you fit them all in your Lion?”

“No, there’s got to be dozens of them, maybe a hundred in here,” Pidge says.

“I can pull the castle closer, and you can shuttle them in one by one,” Coran suggests into the silence that follows that statement.

“Are you sure we want them on the castle?” Keith asks.

“We can’t just leave them here,” Hunk says. “The ship was already running on auxiliary power for who knows how long. We’d be leaving them here to die from unstable cryo de-freeze or worse, starvation.”

“I’ll grab blue to work as backup while Keith and Pidge start bringing them in,” Lance says. “Once they’re on board we can probably find out if they need to be thrown into the brig.”

Although Keith does huff into the comm unit, no one has any real objections or alternatives to Lance’s plan, so he rushes out to Blue, wondering just what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @alpha-hydra !


End file.
